


Two Gifts.

by FallingFaintly



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith, Strike (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Canon - TV, F/M, Shifting Canon Slightly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 17:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30025476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallingFaintly/pseuds/FallingFaintly
Summary: The reception where Strike bumps into Charlotte - tweaked.
Relationships: Charlotte Campbell Ross/Cormoran Strike, Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33





	Two Gifts.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hidetheteaspoons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidetheteaspoons/gifts).



> Greenie shared an image of Robin watching Strike and Charlotte leave, and requested a fic where this happened instead. I've gone for subtle, to try and keep this as in-character as possible, so that maybe there's an alternate universe where Strike didn't feel awful alone in a cab, and Robin didn't go home to Matthew and his awful dress-ripping ways.

“I feel a bit bad about that,” Robin said, and Strike could hear it in her voice. She could do the hard stuff when it mattered, every time, but her fundamental decency was still intact and clearly felt the rub of the murky exchange they had just facilitated between Jasper Chiswell and Geraint Winn.

“Maybe it’s time we went home,” Strike said, no keener to stay and mingle now than she was. “See you at Ebury Street.”

“Yeah,” she said flatly, and he turned and left, tired and rather sore from the altercation in the street. He could already feel bruises purpling under his shirt from a couple of the better placed kicks.

He wove his way through the attendees, leaning heavily on his stick now. Then, in a moment almost like a dream, the dark head of the woman in his path turned as he tried to squeeze past with a muttered ‘Excuse me”.

“Corm,” she said, in obvious surprise.

“Charlotte,” he replied in reflex.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, after a breath.

“Celebrity amputee,” he said, feeling the infection prickle again as he stood looking in her face. “You?” He managed this last with a lightness that surprised even him. 

“Er, Jago’s niece rides, the one with cere..”

“Cerebal Palsy,” Strike remembered. 

“Yeah, her father’s in Hong Kong so her mother invited me along instead,” Charlotte explained. It was all so civilized. He knew he could pretend she was his again if he wanted to. “Are you here with anyone?” She said, her tone dropping low, bringing up half a dozen fragments of memory to him of her leaning in conspiratorially to make a shockingly lewd joke, knowing the way he responded to the thrill of coarseness from such a perfect, beautiful face. He hung in a stupor from it for a moment, and then the room came into focus again, and he managed to say “no” and he hated that there was still so much of him that wanted to say  _ “Only you, rising like a shade and I still want… _ ” 

Because he didn’t want her, not really. He ignored the itch of her in his heart and looked down, with a very slight shake of the head, to look at her hugely distended belly. If it took another man’s child in her to help hold his heart safe, he would take the lifeline.

“Who’ve you brought?” he asked, grabbing onto it.

“Twins! That’s why I’m huge, not due for bloody ages,” she drawled.

“Oh my god! Charlie!” Izzy Chiswell appeared.

“Izzy! How are you?” Charlotte was all society politeness, and with that, the spell was broken. Strike looked away, feeling the fever of her subside, seeking escape now. Was Robin still here, he wondered. He’d said he wasn’t with anyone, but he knew that Charlotte had really meant a date, not a colleague, and if he could catch a glimpse of the green dress, Robin could pull him all the way free here. Izzy determinedly shared the gossip about her brother, Raff, and Strike nodded with all the disinterested politeness he could muster. As Izzy began to list Raff’s latest dalliances to Charlotte, Strike judged that he could slip away, but Charlotte was on him like a rash again.

“Don’t think I’m going your way,” Strike said as he descended the stairs, Charlotte’s pregnant waddle over pronounced because of the heels she wore.

“Well unless you’re tunnelling out we’re both heading for the door,” she said dryly, and slipped a proprietorial arm through his. He looked down at it, and there, at her wrist, were the opals he had given her. The memory of that sunlit day stuttered into life; how she’d managed to be so delighted by the kind of gift from him that she felt she was worth, and still needle him about not giving her such things more often. Here was the bracelet, still on her wrist. Again, he hated that a part of him saw it and clung to the idea that she had no way of knowing he would be here, so she obviously still cherished his gift.  _ She likes expensive jewellery, that’s all, you stupid fucker. _

“Heels,” she said, to justify her unbidden arm in his, “some things I’m not prepared to give up,” she added, and he knew that was definitely true. Heels, expensive jewels, him. As they progressed at a stately pace down the stairs, Strike caught a flash of green beyond the banisters above him. He glanced up and saw Robin standing at the top of the staircase, in another extravagant gift he had given, preparing to leave too, and go home to Matthew, no doubt. Charlotte beside him, wearing his gift and going home to Jago, Robin above him, wearing his gift and going home to Matthew. 

“Share a cab?” Charlotte was asking as they reached the bottom of the stairs, and Strike didn’t answer, his mind a painful whirl of longings he was trying to extinguish or redirect. He knew what she would try and do if they were in a confined space together. Once they reached the street, he pulled his arm from hers like he was extracting something painful.

“No,” he said, and there was all the rejection in it he could find. He did not want her, and the idea of her kisses pressed against him in the back of a cab, while another man’s children grew in her womb between them actually made him a little nauseated. It was another lifeline to cling to, and he took it, barely looking her.

“Where’s the cane I gave you?” she asked, but there was no real concern in her voice.

“You kept it,” he said, beginning to walk away, and then paused. He turned back to her, and he saw the flash of greedy triumph in her face as she thought he was relenting about the cab. What had actually happened was he had remembered her ‘kindness’ of a cane that was too short, and that she’d even kept that. Here she was wearing his gift to her still, and not because she had wanted him to see her in it. Then he remembered Robin’s kindness earlier in the evening, tending his bruises, tidying up the wound on his head, expressing the gentle concern so characteristic of his partner. While she was wearing his gift to her, still using the very skills that had prompted him to buy it for her in the first place.

“Cab, then?” she asked, dipping her voice again.

“No,” he said, moving past her without stopping. “I left something important inside. You can make your own way home.”


End file.
